Diamondbacks 5, Dodgers 2
Cole Gillespie couldn't have asked for a better moment to make an impression on his big league club.
Gillespie followed an intentional walk to a fellow rookie with a tiebreaking three-run homer in the sixth inning and Daniel Hudson gave another outstanding effort, leading the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night.
''You want to make them feel like it was a bad decision,'' Gillespie said. ''It is a little more incentive to come through in that situation. Obviously anytime you have guys in scoring position you want to come through but when they intentionally walk the guy in front of you, you want to make it backfire on them.''
Hudson (8-2) allowed two runs and two hits in 8 2-3 innings, narrowly missing his first career complete game. The 23-year-old right-hander improved to 7-1 with a 1.69 ERA in 11 starts since he was acquired in a trade with the Chicago White Sox on July 30.
''I'm happy getting into the ninth for the first time in my career, throwing well,'' Hudson said. ''I wanted to finish it and I was maybe one pitch away from finishing it.''
With one out and a runner on second in the sixth, John Ely (4-9) intentionally walked Brandon Allen to get to Gillespie, the Diamondbacks' No. 8 hitter. The rookie outfielder responded with a drive to left for his second career homer.
''Initially I had (Gerrardo) Parra in the lineup,'' Arizona interim manager Kirk Gibson said. ''I went back and put Cole in there because righties are better against Ely.''
Gillespie and Kelly Johnson each had two hits for the Diamondbacks, who have won four of five.
''I gave up a couple of hits and left the ball up to the wrong guy,'' Ely said. ''I didn't put a few guys away as well as I should of. I got out of a couple of jams but you can't get out of all of them.''
Ely yielded four runs and seven hits in 5 1-3 innings for Los Angeles, which has lost seven of 10. He was 1-0 with a 1.38 ERA in two previous starts against Arizona this season.
''He needs to give himself a better chance at getting ahead of hitters,'' Los Angeles manager Joe Torre said. ''That, to me, is what the difference is from when he came to us early, the fact that he was ahead in the count made a big difference for him.''
Hudson retired the first nine men he faced and set down eight in a row over another stretch. But Ryan Theriot reached on a two-out single in the ninth and Andre Ethier walked, forcing him out of the game.
''That was pretty impressive,'' Torre said. ''Fast ball, changeup, breaking ball. His pitch count - I looked up in the seventh inning and he had 69 pitches. That was pretty darn impressive the stuff he threw out there tonight. They've got a good one there.''
Hudson said: ''The Dodgers were really aggressive early on in the game. I saw that and wanted to play to that and throw a lot of strikes and let them get themselves out. That helped my pitch count out a lot.''
Gibson says he likes what he has seen from his young right-hander.
''You see him continue to develop,'' Gibson said. ''He threw some nasty sliders tonight. I think he has good feel for what to do at any given time. The key for him will be if he can continue to repeat, throw strikes, throw any pitch at any given count and the biggest of all, stay healthy.''
Mike Hampton entered and yielded James Loney's RBI single before Juan Gutierrez struck out Russell Mitchell for his 13th save.
The Dodgers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the fourth. Trent Oeltjen, starting in place of Matt Kemp, reached on a leadoff double for Los Angeles' first hit off Hudson. He moved up on Theriot's sacrifice and scored on Ethier's grounder to third.
Arizona tied it in the fifth. Stephen Drew matched his career high with his 12th triple of the season and scored on Tony Abreu's lineout to left.
Kemp hit for reliever Jon Link in the ninth, keeping his major league-best consecutive games streak alive at 197, and grounded out.
First baseman John Lindsey, who was called up Sept. 6 after spending 16 years in the minor leagues, broke his left hand after being hit by Hudson in the seventh. Torre said he hoped Lindsey could be OK by next spring.
NOTES: Ely is 0-4 with a 10.45 ERA in his last five starts. ... The Diamondbacks got just their third win in 14 games against the Dodgers, the previous one coming on July 2. ... Including Saturday's game, the Diamondbacks have drawn 2,019,313 fans this season and have reached 2 million in attendance in each of their 13 years in existence.